Based on Jeremiah 29:11
What has made Christian Singles unique has been the fact that we have always tried to view our faith journey from the step-ladder of singleness.
To even mention tonight, that our pain is greater because we are single, seems at first to be sniveling and maudlin against the backdrop of the world's pain. For example, I have been thinking of Afghany children these days. I'll bet their nights are terrorized. So, for me, in my nice house, with a full refrigerator, and the largest military fleet on the planet---to be talking about the fears I have--…………
However, I do believe that naming our fears reduces them. And so I will risk sounding frivolous.
I would like to first suggest, that in your rage, you go to the book of Lamentations tonight and read it. It is the poetry of grief about the city of Jerusalem being destroyed. It was read in most churches and synagogues last week. I grew up believing that it was written by Jeremiah, our friend, the single prophet, who the Hebrew Scripture says was TOLD BY GOD to BE single. How fair is that? And he, witnessed the leveling of Jerusalem.
Could some of the gut wrenching language at the sight of the city of Jerusalem being destroyed---go to the depths it goes to---out of his life long journey of singleness.
I can't speak for Jeremiah. I can only speak for me.
At the end of the days where everyone speculates and discusses their own
perfectly accomplishable war strategies at every coffee counter in America,
at the end of days where I am simply hearing one broken heart then another in
my PASTOR role,
at the end of the days when belly laughs seem to have disappeared and the crack
of a bat on ball seems somehow frivolous,
at the end of the days when I yearn to feel the warm skin of my far away daughters
----I must say, never have I wished that I had someone to come home to more.
I'll bet that Jeremiah felt the same.
As I look at the future and wonder whether I will see grandchildren, I no longer wonder if it is because my children will never marry, now I wonder if it is because my children might not live long enough to marry. As I look at the future and try my best to imagine a way out of this that coincides with my own feeling of non-violence and I stay awake praying for such an ending, I wish that I had someone to hold me.
I'll bet that Jeremiah felt the same.
You see, brothers and sisters in Christ, what we are going through has happened
before. And, others have gone through it.
How did Jeremiah, the single prophet, get through it? How did he have hope.
How do we?
It seems so trite---but, there is nothing else to do but trust in God. I say it sometimes these days and it doesn't sink it like it did before. But, if I believe what I believe, then it should sink in all the more NOW.
We were never promised to live forever. If we have to face the possibility of death as "a people"-as the result of international nuclear war---- instead of alone in our nursing home bed many years to come----What can we learn from looking down the shotgun of our cosmic hate and inability to care about each other? What is the voice of redemption in this craziness?
Jeremiah finally told the people, you must leave Jerusalem and live in exile. Life as you knew it---is forever gone. But, your God goes before you and will be with you. As they packed their belongings, threw plates and agricultural supplies and tools, children's toys and bags of grain---on a wooden cart and headed away from HOME as they knew it-----did they find Jeremiah's word that God was still present very comforting?
Do we?
We are going into a new way of being. We are single. We are alone and we are scared. Now, more than ever, we need to be very sure of these two things:
1) God IS our refuge and strength - a very present help in time of trouble. NOTHING HAS changed about that---though the foundations of the earth are shaking and our "Jerusalem" is no more---God's presence is something that surpasses the way we feel as we pack our life as we knew it away----and climb aboard the rickety, fragile wagon of war, and face a new sort of exile in a strange and terrifying way of life. When you don't feel it, say it and say it and say it and say it. Read Lamentations, Psalms, Jeremiah. Take this bulletin home. Read the Psalms. Sing your hymn book from front to back. Even if you can't carry a tune!
2) The second thing is that we need each other. From now on, until the end of time, next week or next millenium, whenever there is unrest on the planet---be it in Bosnia, Palestine, Yugoslavia or New York we have the LUXURY of KNOWING the fear and standing with our brothers and sisters and their babies wherever they stand---saying this is no way to live!
After all is said and done, Jeremiah, the single, alone prophet-- ostracized politically from his city and his family--called to be the SOLITARY voice begging for peace in the warring world---called to NOT marry and NEVER bear children because his job was to be a God's voice of redemption for the world------
COME ON, GOD---really, how fair is that???????
He should have been bitter. (he was) He should have been scared. (he was) He should have been angry. (he was) He should have called upon God to reign down terror. (he did) He should have been the voice of doom. (he did)
After all, he had NO ONE to come home to.
But that was NOT his final answer. Those emotions did not last. Jeremiah ended in hope.
We can identify with Jeremiah watching his cultural TV on the hills outside the city -- as the walls of Jerusalem crumble before his eyes.
Are you with him on this mountain? Can you see, with him, the horror?
Know that this blasted, outcast finally arrived---through the chaos TO hope. TO a FUTURE. AND, here are his words and I leave them with you. I suggest that you write them in your hearts and upon your lips that they may carry you through the lonely nights.
And I read from Jeremiah 29.
"Lord God Jehovah, Yahweh, Almighty and Everlasting"
Jeremiah looks at this God and hears these words,
"When this exile is ended, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my
promise and bring you back. For surely I KNOW the plans that I have for YOU,
says the Lord, Plans for your welfare and NOT for harm. Plans to give you a
future with HOPE!
Imagine the voice of God, louder than the TV announcer, standing over the ruins of New York, Yugoslavia and maybe soon parts of Pakistan or Afghanistan---saying, "I have plans to give you a future with HOPE!"
"Then, when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me, if you seek me with all of your heart.
I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places and I will bring you back."
That is God's plans. As far as I am concerned, single and alone, married and connected, scared or the one with the gun---I'll trust in God. Human kind has never figured it out.
So, I guess I really do have someone to come home to.
Blessed be the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.
Amen
Please join me in the song found printed in your bulletin-"I Was There
To Hear Your Borning Cry" one that we have come to so dearly love here
at Christian Singles---it's words have NEVER meant more to me than now.
I am praying with all that is within me----for JUST ONE MORE SURPRISE……for me and for God's beautiful world.
Pastor Judith Hanlon
Hadwen Park Congregational Church, Worcester, Mass